#hindustani language

[bimdraws]

For queer people worlwide

If you speak any of the languages listed below you would greatly help me out if you could teach me LGBT+ vocabulary, either through DMs or just in the replies/reblogs. I'm building a global LGBT+ dictionary but some languages are just harder to access in my side of the world.

The languages are the following (in no particular order):

Kashmiri

Caribbean Hindustani

Selk'nam

Ossetian

Bolze

Erromintxela

Petu/petuh

Huilliche

Hmong

[bongboyblog]

both are foreign to the average non-hindustani speaker. why suffer twice? or is the colonial hangover not gone yet? won't that make GoI just another suppressive regime minus the delusion that minority has a say in the workings of this country (which very clearly they don't) :)

Bharat or India, the name doesn't matter. our nation's 'democratic' constitution has always hid pro-colonial agendas in it. I ask, are we really independent? are we really naïve enough enough to believe a common language or culture based on the majority ethnic composition will bring unity in this nation?? (hello? Sri Lankan civil war, Bangladesh liberation war, political instability in Myanmar...) you guys really think it works? is our shared South Asian history not a proof enough to satisfy the Indians' dogmatic mindsets?

also, how does it make us any different from China or Pakistan? we just put a gold cover over an ethnolinguistic genocide and tell the world how proud we are.

over 700 languages (minus the dialects) and we chose a newly created bastard of a tongue, with negligible prior literature, devised and popularised by a British gentleman in Calcutta 'cause they couldn't bother to respect our diversity. And they talk of history lol

[haveyoulistenedtothisalbum-poll]

Tracklist:

𝑤𝑖(𝑙)𝑑-𝑠𝑐𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝗯𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗾𝘂𝗲 • ペン：力：刀 (Pen:Chikara:Katana) (Pen:Power:Sword) • スーパー スタァ スペクタクル (Super Star Spectacle) • color temperature • station zero • 砂とアラベスク (Suna to Arabesque) (Sand and Arabesque) • luminance • focus • キラキラ！キラミラ (Kirakira! Kiramira) (Sparkling! Sparkles)

Spotify ♪ Youtube

[meluhha]

[nitesh567]

Is Hindi hard to learn: Beauty and the Beast

So, you've been bitten by the Bollywood bug and your heart craves to understand the soulful lyrics or maybe you're planning a trip to India, the land of vibrant culture and diverse landscapes. Whatever your reason, Hindi has piqued your interest, but a nagging question lingers: is this language a majestic mountain to conquer or a frustrating beast to tame?

The Script: A Labyrinth of Lines

Let's be honest, the Devanagari script, with its beautiful curves and conjunct consonants, can be intimidating at first glance. It's a completely different system compared to the familiar Latin alphabet. But fret not, fellow language learner! The writing system is logical and with dedication, those curves will soon become friends, not foes.

Sounds Like Fun...Maybe?

Pronunciation can be a playful dance between familiarity and foreignness. Hindi has sounds not found in English, like the retroflex sounds that tickle the back of your tongue. On the other hand, some vocabulary might surprise you! Many English words have been borrowed from Hindi, like "karma," "chutney," and even "bungalow."

Grammar Got You in a Twist?

While Hindi grammar might seem alien at first, with its verb conjugations and different sentence structures, it has its own logic. Unlike English, Hindi is a verb-final language, so get ready to think a little differently. The good news? Hindi doesn't have grammatical genders for nouns, making life a little easier.

Conclusion: A Rewarding Romp, Not an Impossible Climb

Yes, Hindi has its challenges, but isn't that part of the adventure? The satisfaction of understanding a complex language and unlocking a new culture is a prize worth pursuing. With dedication, the right resources, and a dash of fun (think Bollywood movie nights!), you'll be surprised at how quickly you can navigate the beautiful complexities of Hindi. So, what are you waiting for? Embark on your Hindi learning journey today!

[metamatar]

Judeo-Urdu (Urdu: یہود اردو, romanized: yahūd urdū; Hebrew: אורדו יהודית, romanized: ūrdū yehūdīt)[1] was a dialect of the Hindustani language, spoken by the Baghdadi Jews in the Indian subcontinent living in the areas of Bombay and Calcutta towards the end of the 18th century.[2] It is a dialect which was written in the Hebrew script, and found to be utilised for a number of pieces of literature, such as Inder Sabha, a copy of which is kept at the British Library.[3][4]

[ouch-thats-harsh]

hii!! how r u?? i saw ur BNHA Class1-a w/ an indian reader and i honestly LOVED IT!! i was hoping to request for an indian reader with class 1-a but where they think she is really quiet and shy. HOWEVER, they witness her OTHER side when they see her vibing like crazy to bollywood songs??????????????? thnx<333 hv a good day/nightt!!! :)))

Pairings: none! Just friends and classmates :)

warnings: none! Gn! Reader. Indian reader, the reader is a bit shy

Author's note: Omg, hello!!! It's been a while since I disappeared for no reason😭 I'm sorry I didn't see your ask till now!! I'm so glad you loved the fic, it came from a need, honestly. Also I'm definitely more than rusty at this rn, so please forgive me if this sucks, I'm not the best at English, so i apologise for any mistakes.

A day doesn't pass without your headphones and music. The ghazals, the carnatic music, the hindustani tunes and Bollywood moods to wake your soul up. It was a need for you because more than anything, it was a piece of your home. Their foreign exchange student from India was a specimen worth knowing. Smart, brilliant, gorgeous but also quiet. You being quiet was something they expected, the language barrier guarenteed it! they dubbed your behaviour as that, but turns out thats just the way you were. It added to your charm.

One early Monday, after seemingly a shitty week, everyone had to get back on schedule. Exhausted students pulling themselves out of beds for another tiring week wasn't something new. UA makes it a death week, sometimes literally. Fatigue rolled in by the evening. After letting your friends know that you were ready to turn in for the night, you went straight to your dorm to rest. That was until you got a Google photos notif, from the last time you went to navratri.

Sero was just walking to his room, he was unbothered and chill. Then came your dorm room.

Before long your friends were outside your door

*Knock knock*

from the outside one could hear the faint sound of music and someone singing. They slowly opened the door, to see you, their adorable lovely quiet friend, eyes closed, with loud music, moving your hips to some Bollywood song? the song suited you, thought midoriya as soon as he saw you.

But then the shock came. You danced???

"DAMN GIRL!!" mina's loud outburst alerted you. You froze in place at the sudden yell, "how long have you guys been standing there???" You cried out, a bit embarrassed, maybe too embarrassed. You quickly turned the music off.

"Long enough to see you dance." Kirishima pointed out with a smirk. You felt your face warm. kaminari laughed at the sight of you flustered. Even though the situation was just the material to tease you with, they saw how much you enjoyed it, how carefree you were at that moment.

"What song was that? And you never told me you could move like *that*" mina asked pointing at you. "It's- uhm, it's called" you looked at your phone to get the title right, "tumhi ho bandu... And i- uh could always do that? Haha" the nervousness was evident, probably a result of you hiding this side of yours for so long.

This was a pleasant surprise to them. You looked more alive than they could remember.

Ochaco remembered the times you told her about baraat and gharba, times where you danced as if it was your last breathe of air. You told her about how your lungs would burn, sweat rolling off your head onto the earth. She saw what you meant today, even if it was fleeting. She wanted to join. She picked up your phone and played the next song. The beginning of nachde ne saare played. A memory for you, dancing with your bestfriend back home, unlocked.

You felt shy as the song began, but Ochaco and mina, ever the dancers, began moving, inviting you to do too. The guys were watching until pulled in by the duo, bakugou just stayed in his place, watching and nodding to the beat after a while. You could see some of them puzzled at the words but they swayed nonetheless. You remember this scene from somewhere. What was it? 2 years ago? Tenth farewell party... You remember something just like this, loud music, laughter, flaying arms and someone's horrible attempt at Bhangra. Flashes of old friends transitioned into your new ones, just as precious, loving and loved.

The hour was spent dancing, singing (gibberish more like), before long exhaustion hit all of you."We- *pants* should do this more often" a tired momo said. Satisfied with the whole thing. Some agreed immediately with her, smiling. You all talked a bit after that, letting yourselves relax. "You know, I'm glad i snooped enough to get to see this" sero said amused. "Yeah, i mean, for all we know you could've just hid those hips from us forever." Mina laughed. You chuckled a bit. "Thats called thumke" you told her, happy at the sight of all of them beside you. You went back to your quiet self.

"I do hope we'll get to see you like this more, it's nice to see you so fired up and not only on the battlefield" tooru said as she got up, the others added to her comment agreeing. After her the rest got up and decided to finally go to bed, they all hugged you or just showed their way of being affectionate, so did you.

Your room was silent now. You felt content, somehow at peace at the whole "incident" as they would come to call it from now on.You closed your eyes, the sounds from earlier echoed in your head, though loud, it put you to sleep.

End note: hey, uhm so this was smtg I cooked up after not writing for a long while, so please do leave suggestions on how to improve and yea, thanks for reading! :))

[timetravellingkitty]

this is an extremely stupid question but, do you see hindi and urdu as two separate languages? i've seen conflicting opinions on it (like the idea that the division between the two is essentially political and they're basically mutually understandable) and you always have correct opinions

(really i'm trying to figure out if my mom is cheating by saying she knows four languages (punjabi, hindu, urdu, english))

I think they can be seen as separate languages, just more or less mutually intelligible but they're considered two registers of the same hindustani language, even if people technically use urdu vocabulary and still say they're talking in hindi (azadi is urdu for independence, in hindi it's svantantrata, condition is halat in urdu and stithi in hindi etc etc) BUT ALSO hindutvawadis think khariboli having persian influence is arab colonisation or wtv so ofc they call bollywood urduwood for using urdu words

that being said your mom's prolly cheating cause I do that too lmao I do know my urdu vocabulary cause I grew up with it more or less but I can't read or write for shit

[somerabbitholes]

I always come for book recs but this time I'm here for sogs/artists recs. Do you or any of your followers have any hindi/Urdu/any regional language non-bollywood song recs? My playlists are lacking!

hi! here's what i have, and i hope everyone adds onto the list. i would also love more music!

just a bunch of gazals

marathi music

vaguely classical maharashtrian stuff

music in a bunch of languages other than english

hindustani classical (instrumental)

kumar gandharva

this is called home, which is just some old music that's almost always playing at my home

[elbiotipo]

We should make the world language a conlang that isn't eurocentric. I think combining the vocabulary of Mandarin, Arabic, Hindustani, Malay, Latin/English, Swahili, Nahuatl and Quechua would be the best way to go about it.

Yeah, Esperanto and Interlingua are basically "all (Western) European languages together", why not add some variety? Come on.

I've tried to learn Mandarin and I'm surprised at how economic it is with its words and sounds, the verbs just make sense, it flows very well. The tones are very hard to learn to someone who isn't used to it and it's very fast paced, but I find it interesting to learn because it's very distant from Indoeuropean languages (learning English as a Spanish speaker was "easier" because of that, especially because English is perhaps the most 'latinized' Germanic language because of the Normans)

I don't really thing a conlang will ever be able to impose itself as a world language, but I'm of the theory that "World English" will eventually be shaped by second-language speakers rather than those of the "Anglosphere", eventually diverging from UK or US speaking to become a whole new language. That is, of course, if it continues to be the world language, and given that the US might eventually fall from its spot as world hegemon (IMPERIO EN DECADENCIA) other language might take its place.

Of course, I'm still saying it should be Latin. It's a shame that scientific papers aren't published in Latin anymore. Even by the mid XXth century some plants were STILL being described in Botanical Latin, and I don't mean "scientific names" I mean that the description itself, all the organs and habits of the plant, were published in Latin. They don't do that anymore, but it was so cool.

[leroibobo]

ok here's another explainer post explaining the aramaic language very basically:

what is aramaic?

to paraphrase wikipedia, aramaic is a northwest semitic language that the arameans (where the name comes from) spread somehow a really long time ago. it since became the prestige language in a bunch of empires like the neo-assyrian empire. although its place was eventually taken by other languges, it's still preserved to this day in many different forms.

nowadays, "aramaic" is a broad label for a very diverse dialect continuum, sort of like “arabic”, “kurdish”, “persian”, or “hindustani". in other words, it's like if we referred to all the languages in italy, including older ones like the latin spoken in roman times, collectively as “latin”. (this isn’t too far off how some governments think of minority languages actually, but that’s beside the point.)

how is aramaic related to other semitic languages?

being a northwest semitic language, aramaic is a sister of the caananite languages (making it an aunt of hebrew and phonecian), a cousin of arabic, and the second cousin of the ethio-semitic languages (making it the second cousin once removed of ge'ez). if you need a comparison, english is the second cousin of dutch.

how is aramaic used today?

specific sorts of aramaic are used today for religious and vernacular purposes. some religious aramaic:

classical syriac, which developed from eastern aramaic, is the liturgical language of the christian east and west syriac rites, each using their own dialect. classical syriac was also historically used as a literary language.

mandaic has a similar history, and is now used in the liturgy of the mandaean faith of the ethnoreligious mandaean people.

targumic aramaic refers to the archaic aramaic used in several antique translations of the tanakh from biblical hebrew into aramaic. the talmud is also in two different versions of older aramaic as well as mishnaic hebrew. these are used for study in general by all jews, and yemenite jews still use the targumim liturgically.

samaritans also have their own aramaic which is similar in form and use the jewish one.

all of these forms of aramaic are different evolutions in their own right - influencing and possibly descending directly from newer aramaic forms. we don’t know exactly what came from where, and linguists tend not to always be exactly right when figuring it out (which is why “vulgar latin” was a thing people thought was real for a while).

the vernacular aramaic spoken today are the neo-aramaic languages, which represent the latest vernacular evolutions of aramaic from late medieval times. most of the neo-aramaic varieties spoken today are central and northeastern neo-aramaic, which stem from eastern aramaic, and most of the speakers are ethnic assyrians. smaller communities speaking the only surviving variety of neo-aramaic which came from western aramaic exist in a few villages along the anti-lebanon mountains (like the village of maaloula in syria). a mostly aging community of judeo-aramaic speakers live in palestine.

a map of the homes of the living neo-aramaic varieties, which doesn't necessarily reflect where each variety is spoken (the labels are a bit confusing - pretend syriac/aramaic say "neo-aramaic", and specifically that "western syriac" says "central neo-aramaic"):

here's a map of the "larger" judeo-aramaic varieties by 1948 (judeo-aramaic was generally spoken in these areas but "smaller" dialects may not be shown or named):

i should say that not all speakers of these types of aramaic agree with some of the names linguists have ascribed what they speak. for example, "turoyo" speakers refer to their language as "surayt". linguists also gave the name "aromay" to the neo-aramaic spoken in maaloula, but the speakers themselves refer to their language as "siryon". "neo-aramaic" is itself an exonym. this part of the world is in general not written about a whole lot, and when it is, it's not always with the input of the people who are from there.

another interesting thing about the names is that, while christians tend to call it some form of s-y-r (sureth, suryat, siryon, etc, ie syriac), jews tended to call it some variation of either "our language", "jewish", or "targumic". you can find this in some other jewish languages/dialects/ethnolects.

christian/assyrian varieties seem to be a lot more widespread than jewish ones. what's that about?

there's a lot more christians in the world than there are jews.

what do you mean by “jewish” neo-aramaic, anyways?

"jewish neo-aramaic" is a term linguists gave to the many languages jews in those regions on the map spoke which are descendants of araaic. like the other types of neo-aramaic, judeo-aramaic is not one, all-encompassing language, but multiple languages that all happen to be spoken by jews. variations in regional languages can be as small as from town to town all over the world, communities with some form of separation may have their own dialects, religion has often had an effect on where you lived in the me historically, and this part of the world was known to be a place you fled to if you didn't like whatever government was in power (you could call it the "mashriq's appalacia"), hence, jewish neo-aramaic[s].

the degree of mutual intelligibility between jewish neo-aramaic types and other neo-aramaic types varies - some are unintelligible to other kinds despite the two being in the same city/town, others are exactly the same save for the stress in a word being on different syllables. differences don't mean jews and other aramaic-speakers couldn't have spoken each other's dialects, understood each other, or gotten influence from one another in addition to other contact languages. there was usually some other sort of medium they were using, be it arabic, kurdish, turkish, or a "neutral" aramaic. it's kind of like an amplified version of the differences between different arabic dialects in that way.

the association of "jewish language" usually brings about the questions of loanwords from hebrew or targumic (which many jewish neo-aramaics did have), mutual intelligibility with the "standard" form of a language, or social isolation (such as in yiddish, which itself wasn't even isolated, quite the contrary in fact), but that isn't what makes a jewish variation of a language "jewish". it's more that some variation of a language was used by jews in a specific context. (sort of like how the class differences in different english accents in the uk don't actually render different types of british english unintelligible to one another. or even how i'd probably avoid talking to my mom about my favorite video game characters because she has no idea what a "jun oda" is, but i can talk to her about other things.)

what about muslims? did/do they speak aramaic?

you can't switch the language you speak overnight, so yes, muslims who lived in places where aramaic was still widely spoken spoke aramaic instead of and even in addition to other languages in the past. also, that someone stopped speaking aramaic doesn't necessarily mean it's gone forever - not only are muslims thought to have retained an understanding of aramaic their non-muslim neighbors may've spoken even if they didn't speak it themselves, but aramaic influenced some of today's regional arabic dialects. (more on that later.) the association of neo-aramaic with non-muslims is actually rather recent in that regard.

as for aramaic-speaking muslims today, most of the the aramaic-speakers in the speaking communities on the anti-lebanon mountains i talked about earlier are muslim. the communities are close-knit, and the isolation helps.

and what about mandaeans and samaritans? do they have a vernacular aramaic?

not only do mandaeans have one - neo-mandaic - but it's the only surviving pre-medieval vernacular aramaic dialect. (it’s the only vernacular aramaic that isn’t a “neo”.)

i’m sure samaritans also had their own vernacular aramaic before switching to arabic (which they spoke before the occupation happened). western vernacular aramaic usually didn’t last.

how come? does it have anything to do with most neo-aramaic being central and northeastern, like the map showed?

it does. differences in geography (east med = more densely populated; north mesopotamia = less densely populated and more mountains), which pre-arab and post-jesus empires ruled where (byzantines ended up with most of the places west aramaic was spoken), and how much those empires cared about aramaic resulted in arabic taking over as the vernacular in pretty much all the western areas except in more rural places, while more of the generally more isolated eastern aramaic-speaking communities lasted. in general, the more urban and shami you were, the shorter time it took you to adopt arabic.

also, classical syriac having a lasting literary history and barely any western aramaic languages being able to say the same contributed to what future generations were able to pick up on. the greek-influenced christians in those west armaic speaking areas had a habit of burning aramaic-language manuscripts because of church fandom drama. there's some revival efforts in traditionally western neo-aramaic speaking communities, though in places like palestine and lebanon, these may take on a certain political dimension that they don't have elsewhere.

what else differentiates different types of aramaic?

the same things that differentiate different versions of other dialect continuums: languages speakers spoke before, the passage of time, different neighboring languages, and geographic distance (“western”, “eastern”) bring about new quirks in pronunciation/phrasing/grammar/loanwords. this is pretty heavy stuff, so if you want the specifics, i recommend looking into the timeline of a specific aramaic language.

is western neo-aramaic closer to what jesus spoke? is it more authentic?

in theory, sure - he would've spoken a western vernacular variety called galilean jewish aramaic specifically. in reality, this question is like asking if british english is more authentic to the english shakespeare spoke. aramaic in general and the world as a whole have changed so much from the time jesus would've lived. he would understand any of today's aramaic just as much as shakespeare would understand the english spoken on tiktok.

how's mutual intelligibility?

it can vary significantly or not at all, but the same aramaic "basis" is still there in all forms. i'd wager it's about the same level of differences you'd find between different romance languages.

here's some transliterations of the lord's prayer (our father who art in heaven etc) in western neo-aramaic, suryat/turoyo, the eastern dialect of classical syriac, and (for some reason) hebrew courtesy of wikipedia to show a few differences:

or this one, of the assyrian and jewish urmia dialects:

did aramaic influence other languages at all?

like i implied in the second question, all the semitic languages are super close, and a lot of them have cognates or similar words/phrases. in that sense, it may not be as easy to say what definitively came from where, but that doesn't mean it's impossible.

before levantine and mesopotamian arabic speakers spoke arabic, aramaic was the lingua franca in the areas where they lived. aramaic forms a substrate in all of these types of arabic in loanwords, some pronunciation, and a few grammatical features. aramaic influence is more significant in certain types, such as in more rural dialects of levantine arabic as well as northern and jewish dialects of mesopotamian arabic, which speaks to how arabic spread in those areas. (i also heard the dialect of arabic marsh arabs speak has a lot of aramaic influence but i couldn't find a good source.) this is a pattern you can find in regional variations of arabic in general, such as the influence of coptic on egyptian arabic.

(arabic in general also has a number of aramaic loanwords, like دفتر (daftar), or "notebook". this word is originally greek but came via aramaic.)

hebrew, being often used together with it in the past (and aramaic eventually supplanting it as a spoken language), has been influenced by it for a while now. aramaic also formed an influence on pretty much all the non-aramaic (since those are already aramaic) jewish languages in a similar way to what happened with levantine/mesopotamian arabic, though hebrew influences jewish languages more than aramaic generally. it also influenced most of the loans in modern hebrew, including the words they made up (like "glida" for "ice cream", which comes from an identical word meaning "ice" or "frost". i don't know if the word "gelato" had anything to do with this as well, but it might as well have.)

aramaic also has influences on kurdish, farsi, armenian, ge'ez, turkish, latin, greek, and probably more that i can't think about right now via loanwords and terms, though they're not as significant. and yes, that latin/greek means we have aramaic-derived words in english, too, such as "messiah", though they're mostly in the form of given names like "matthew" and "peter".

is aramaic endangered? are the other varieties of aramaic extinct?

the religious languages are all in continuous use in one way or another, but not as vernacular with native speakers, so they'd be considered "dead". (this is what hebrew was before its revival.) an "extinct" language is a language that didn't even survive via written records, which some varieties of aramaic (mostly western ones, like i mentioned earlier) are.

as for vernacular aramaic, all of them are endangered - i don't think there's any varieties with over a million speakers, and no varieties are an official language anywhere - but some varieties are safer than others. the ones that are doing the worst right now are probably neo-mandaic (which only has a few thousand native speakers), the jewish neo-aramaic dialects (which can vary from a few thousand to a few hundred to single digit speakers, the one with the most speakers right now is the hulaulá ("jewish") dialect with 10,000 due to most of its speakers coming much later than others (from iran in 1979)), and a handful of christian/assyrian regional dialects (like the one of hertevin).

western neo-aramaic is endangered in the sense that it's the only surviving vernacular western neo-aramaic with a speaking community, but there's 30k speakers as of 2023, so it could be doing worse.

what scripts are used to write aramaic?

it's worth noting that vernacular neo-aramaic everywhere was only passed down orally for generations, and written forms, especially for teaching, are quite recent. also, all the scripts i'm about to mention are right-to-left abjads. that said:

the old aramaic script was used to write it in the past. from a combination of it and paleo-hebrew developed the hebrew script (which used to be called "ktav ashuri", or "assyrian script"), which has been used to write all jewish variations of aramaic since, and is used to write judeo-aramaic today. samaritans use their own script to write in aramaic.

the old aramaic script also birthed the nabataean script (which is the parent of the arabic script) and a few historic persian scripts like the pahlavi script (which gave us the avestan script).

syriac script, in use from the first century, is used to write classical syriac as well as the many varieties of neo-aramaic spoken by christians/assyrians today. the revival efforts in maaloula originally used a very familiar script but eventually switched to the syriac one because that one looked a little too familiar.

the syriac script also developed from the aramaic script. (if you know how to read the hebrew or arabic scripts, see if you can recognize letters below.) there's some variations between the eastern and western syriac scripts (called "maḏnḥāyā" (eastern) and "serṭā" (line) respectively), along with the classical 'esṭrangelā (rounded) script. the two main differences are:

vowel notation - western uses small greek letters (ܓܱ = ga, notice the small A on the bottom), eastern uses an older form (ܓܲ = ga, with a dot above and below). like with other abjads, you won't usually see vowel notations in use at all.

font/shape - you can't see them in unicode, but each have a particular style they're written in. as you can guess from the name, 'estrangela is more "rounded", eastern is generally heavier and conservative in its rendering, and western is more simplified. (the kind used in unicode is 'estrangela.)

some examples, again courtesy of wikipedia:

syriac script also has some descendants. its child, the sogdian script, was used to write the iranian sogdian language, and is the parent of the manichaean aramaic script, the old turkic script (which gave birth to the old hungarian script), and the old uyghur script (which gave birth to the mongolian and manchu scripts).

mandaic also has its own script, the mandaic script. it's another descendant of the aramaic script (maybe via parthian) in use since the 2nd century ce. it's used to write both classical and neo-mandaic. instead of traditional semitic letter names like "aleph", "bet", "gimel", etc, it's known to use its own names, like "a", "ba", "ga", etc. neo-mandaic uses a modified version of the classical script but it's barely written to begin with.

here's a written sample of article 1 of the universal declaration of human rights written in classical mandaic script:

i don't have any familial or religious connection to aramaic, but i'd like to learn it. can i?

after you pick which sort of "aramaic" you wanna learn, i don't see why not. it's not closed or anything. there's probably someone out there who feels differently but that's their problem.

where can i learn [aramaic type], or learn more about it?

i'm trying to find this out myself. the only actual judeo-aramaic learning resource i could find was the mysterious once-a-year class offered by oxford's school of rare jewish languages. that said, here's some resources i know about:

northeast neo-aramaic database project - a database by cambridge of info on different dialects of nena neo-aramaic, including recordings, layouts of the grammar, and comparisons between different dialects.

resources on reddit's language learning sub

two pdfs to make up for that broken first one

šlama.io - focuses on assyrian neo-aramaic (sureth)

surayt.com - resources for surayt

mandaean network - resources on mandaic.

r12a - resources on how different scripts in all languages work, good resource for languages/scripts in general.

if you know any more resources, reply with them to this post and i'll put 'em here.

[gwendolynlerman]

Languages with the most sounds

Languages have different phonetic inventories. Some languages use more sounds than others. Two sounds are different if they are perceived to constitute two distinct phonemes by native speakers. 

Here is a ranking of the most common languages by the number of sounds (phonemes) they use. Diphthongs are not considered because they are merely a combination of vowels that already exist in a language.

Lithuanian: 12 vowels and 47 consonants = 59 sounds

Danish: 32 vowels and 20 consonants = 52 sounds

Hindustani: 11 vowels and 37 consonants = 48 sounds

Welsh: 14 vowels and 31 consonants = 45 sounds

German: 20 vowels and 25 consonants = 45 sounds

Belarusian: 6 vowels and 39 consonants = 45 sounds

Norwegian: 19 vowels and 25 consonants = 44 sounds

Irish: 11 vowels and 33 consonants = 44 sounds

Bulgarian: 8 vowels and 36 consonants = 44 sounds

Hungarian: 14 vowels and 27 consonants = 41 sounds

Ukrainian: 6 vowels and 34 consonants = 40 sounds

Russian: 6 vowels and 34 consonants = 40 sounds

Slovak: 10 vowels and 29 consonants = 39 sounds

Latvian: 12 vowels and 27 consonants = 39 sounds

French: 17 vowels and 22 consonants = 39 sounds

Estonian: 9 vowels and 30 consonants = 39 sounds

Dutch: 16 vowels and 23 consonants = 39 sounds

Icelandic: 16 vowels and 22 consonants = 38 sounds

Portuguese: 14 vowels and 23 consonants = 37 sounds

Polish: 6 vowels and 31 consonants = 37 sounds

Czech: 10 vowels and 27 consonants = 37 sounds

Albanian: 7 vowels and 30 consonants = 37 sounds

English: 12 vowels and 24 consonants = 36 sounds

Catalan: 8 vowels and 28 consonants = 36 sounds

Swedish: 17 vowels and 18 consonants = 35 sounds

Mandarin: 9 vowels and 26 consonants = 35 sounds

Finnish: 16 vowels and 18 consonants = 34 sounds

Arabic: 6 vowels and 28 consonants = 34 sounds

Hausa: 10 vowels and 24 consonants = 34 sounds

Esperanto: 5 vowels and 27 consonants = 32 sounds

Persian: 6 vowels and 26 consonants = 32 sounds

Turkish: 8 vowels and 23 consonants = 31 sounds

Serbo-Croatian: 5 vowels and 25 consonants = 30 sounds

Italian: 7 vowels and 23 consonants = 30 sounds

Basque: 6 vowels and consonants = 30 sounds

Romanian: 7 vowels and 22 consonants = 29 sounds

Galician: 7 vowels and 19 consonants = 26 sounds

Spanish: 5 vowels and 20 consonants = 25 sounds

Greek: 5 vowels and 18 consonants = 23 sounds

Japanese: 5 vowels and 17 consonants = 22 sounds

This is by no means a complete list and is also very Eurocentric, but the source only had information for these languages.

[ghelgheli]

once i was doing farsi elicitations for a hindustani speaker working on their linguistics thesis. we got to "hospital" so i provided the utterance, bimārestān, and they commented how surprised they were when they first found out about this. for my part, i learnt that in many languages -stān has not been generalized quite so easily beyond meaning "a land where people live". thus, the farsi hospital: a nation of sick people!

[communist-ojou-sama]

those interested might like to know that the variety of persian that loaned extensively into hindustani and the turkic languages and was the administrative language of basically every turco-mongolic steppe empire was closer to the more conservative variety of persian spoken in afghanistan (فارسی داری) than the persian of iran

[arzuispolitical]

so I've been having a little bit of a linguistics hyperfixation lately, and I decided to educate myself a little on the several languages of India - more particularly, their history and how they came to be the languages we recognise today, because I'm a bit of a history nerd. there was also this one insta reel living rent-free in my brain about how both the languages urdu and hindi came from meerut apparently and wasn't endemic to pakistan or something??? which is obviously a bunch of hogwash how can a language just be born in a city but whatever it bothered me enough to learn about it.

now i'm not a linguist so take this with a grain of salt but it turns out. hindi and urdu used to be the exact same language.

"but what about the script? the two languages look completely different - hindi is written in devanagari, and urdu in modified persian!"

there are many languages in the world that do not have their own script - this is especially true historically. that's why virtually all of the western european languages share a script - roman - because when the empire collapsed and new kingdoms began to take its place, they found that they didn't have to invent an entirely new script for administration - they could just take rome's. this is a vast oversimplification, but you get my meaning.

our language did not have this problem. if you were a person living in early 18th century india, you could write the vernacular used in the north of the country (it's collected a lot of names - hindu, urdu, hindustani, rekhta, hindavi, khariboli, etc.) in Kaithi, Devanagari OR Persian; granted you knew how to write, of course. this is what kaithi looks like:

if you're at all familiar with hindi/urdu, then you must also know what devanagari and nastaʿlīq looks like, so i'm not including them here.

all of these scripts would have been used at different times by different people in order to do different things - hindustani written in nastaʿlīq (which would later become urdu) would have been used for admin work by local lords and the like; kaithi was used by the kayasthas, a caste of scribes and accountants, and devanagari was popularly used by brahmins to write down religious scriptures.

over time, however, as colonial influence expanded and the british began to teach themselves the language, communal sentiments - mostly hindu brahmins that despised the influence of the 'urdu' elite - began to spread. they made literature and taught the english a version of "hindi" that had many sanskrit words and had removed all arabo-persian ones. on the other hand, poets and writers that had once been formerly empowered by the patronage of the mughals began to feel disillusioned with how much power had been stolen from them - so, they began to make their "urdu" much more arabicised and persianised.

the british also began to allow the use of the devanagari script in courts. and then then later - through malicious ignorance - recognised hindi and urdu as separate languages in some acts relating to official employment and education. this, combined with cultural factors and the aforementioned communal sentiments, led to hindi and urdu becoming different languages in the popular imagination.

so yeah. the only reason they're two different languages now is because of divide-and-rule. thanks, britain!

[metamatar]

I was talking about this yday but Sanskrit revivalists in India quite openly admire the revival of Hebrew in Israel, viewing Hindustani and all khari boli languages as being infected by Persian and other undesirable Muslim languages that must be replaced by a Brahmanised Sanskrit.

One country, One race, One religion, One Language, in the Savarkar formulation.

This article is by someone uncritical of Sanskrit revival in general.

This is Sri Aurobindo Society's journal, one of the many movements that disseminate Hindu nationalist culture.